A couple of aerospace engineers touched down in Ruleville over the weekend to give a group of elementary and middle school students a little boost in their education.
Angelo Coleman, senior systems engineer, National Aeronautics and Space Administration along with Mathis Tate, communications engineer, Raytheon Missiles System scheduled some time on Saturday to help several boys and girls build working robots, answer questions and talk to the children about considering a S.T.E.M. related course of study.
Tate and Coleman came to Ruleville Middle School to conduct the free robotics camp at the request of Nicole Jackson and Shayla Jackson-Tate of Dorothy’s Legacy a not-for-profit organization formed by the two sisters to honor their mother and continue what she started.
The purpose of the camp was to offer students the chance to have fun and learn basic programming and robotics, plus work together to enhance their cooperative skills. They started out with just a metal box and had to attach all of the components themselves. They tested and conducted troubleshooting procedures on the finished product with Tate and Coleman’s guidance.
In an effort to further entice their enthusiasm for a career in engineering, the students were introduced, via video call, to a NASA engineer that happens to be an African-American woman who is currently working on the shuttle that is going to Mars.
Coleman, who is a graduate of Alabama A&M with a degree in mechanical engineering said he works with children because he seldom hears any of them express that they would like to be an engineer. “I felt it was my duty to help them understand what an engineer does and what an engineer looks like,” he said.
He said often times children are not exposed to the engineering field because of their cultural environment. “But it is my job to help them see that whatever you want to be, you can be, because I didn’t come up in a very good environment myself,” he said. Coleman said it wasn’t until he got to college in Alabama that someone explained to him the role of an engineer.
His career began in 1997, he started as an intern and working part-time for Boeing while still in school in Alabama. Later, he move to Houston and started working for United Space Alliance before returning to Alabama to finish his masters degree and begin working for NASA on the Orbital Space Plane program.
Shayla said initially they were just going to start a robotics club to enter into competitions but decided on the camp so it would be open to all students regardless of their academic skill levels. “It doesn’t matter if you are an A student, or a C student or even a D student, most of your multi-millionaires were not the best students, but they were good with their hands,” she said.
Shayla and her sister took over their mother’s organization last year and renamed it Dorothy’s Legacy Inc. “We’re stepping in as a part of my mom’s corporation, because we wanted to be able to come into the schools and give the children the opportunities they don’t otherwise have,”
And since Ruleville doesn’t have a S.T.E.M. program they felt it was their duty to come back and give back and encourage the children because not enough minority students are entering the science, technology, engineering and math fields. “We know that if we expose our children to things, then our children can go forward, all they need is an opportunity,” Shayla said.
Shayla, who is an attorney for a cyber security and biometrics firm in Huntsville, Alabama, said she spends a lot of time around engineers and they all say the same thing. “I was excited about engineering when I saw an engineer.”
She and her husband, Mathis, drive to Ruleville on weekends just to assist with the free camp and help expose the children to the field of engineering.
She mentioned the 1903 essay by W.E.B. Du Bois that expresses the concept that African-American people will be pulled up by other people who look like them and come into the communities and help them.
“Once you get your talent, you bring your talent back and that’s what we believe at Dorothy’s Legacy,” Shayla said.
Nicole is the executive director of Dorothy’s Legacy and a psychometrist by profession with her own diagnostic and consulting firm in Ruleville and she concurs that there is a lack of S.T.E.M. related educational opportunities for students on the northern end of the county.
She said she is excited about giving the children the opportunity to interact with the engineers, to be able to see and touch them. “Because if you can see it, you can be it,” she said.
Shayla said Dorothy’s Legacy is about investing in the future, which is the children. And although some of the children had never heard of an engineer before, there was one little boy there in Ruleville who had researched NASA and was already trying to figure out which area he would fit into, which is why they wanted to expose the students to the engineers.
Their mother, Dorothy Jackson, was a teacher and tutor in Ruleville, Drew and Rosedale. Seeing the need to help the kids, Dorothy established the Ruleville Community Development Cooperation circa 2002 and ran it until she passed away as a result of breast cancer in 2012.
Shayla said their mother saw the positive difference it made in a child who was acting up at school when that child finally understood the basic fundamentals. “They behaved better in class,” she said. She also mentioned one parent who told her mother that her child behaved better at home and didn’t give her any backtalk. “That’s because they felt confident, because now they can walk into class and they knew the material,” she stated.
Shayla said, “My mom, when she was dying, kept saying… Help me help the kids.” Nicole added, “Those were her last words, because she was so passionate about helping these kids. She would always say if we don’t help the kids, the fools on the streets will.”
Principal Tommy Molden applauded the group’s effort noting that, “All our children need is exposure.” Molden said that because of the enthusiasm it is clear that the children have an interest; it just takes someone to start it up.
The students will receive a certificate suitable for framing for their participation.
